I am trying to get a grip, a hold of some of the things I have been reading, but man if it don't seem like an race against time to try and comprehend where I should begin when it comes to philosophy and architecture. When you try Derrida I think shouldn't I start earlier? Deleuze the same thing. What is the beginning, what is the nearest point one should begin to try and get a leg up on what it is I have been reading? I thought perhaps by starting at a bibliography and working back from there? Any thoughts? Diabase? AP? Smoke? +q?
i'm no philosopher-architect, but i think you could start almost anywhere. derrida will make you curious about certain things which came before; deleuze might lead you a different direction.
i'd say sample at random. i started with kierkegaard's 'the concept of dread' in high school, understood very little of it but kept going.
despite reading many of the hot titles over the last decade or so - and being excited about the possibilities that they present, on occasion - i still fall back on heidegger as the most useful in finding and understanding what i hope to achieve in a built architecture.
You can never really get to the start. All the philosophers rely on their predecessors. Steven's right - you could start anywhere and work backwards. However, some philosophers make it easier than others. At first, you understand virtually nothing, then after a while you start to make connections. Read philosophers who speak to the philosophical problems you relate to. Don't bother reading anyone because they're supposed to be important.
Get a Philosophical encyclopedia (The Oxford Companion to Philosophy is great). That will help you get sound-bite level understandings of people. Alternatively the Stanford Encyclopedia or the IEP are helpful.
Some random suggestions you might like or hate:
Heidegger's 'Building Dwelling Thinking'
Derrida's 'Structure Sign and Play' and 'That Dangerous Supplement'
Kierkegaard's 'Fear and Trembling'
Foucault's 'Archaeology of Knowledge'
good thoughts. what i have found is that i enjoy the interview as method, it seems that when a person is interviewed you can get a better appreciation/understanding of their viewpoint, than if you try to digest their writing.
i've read a little of a lot, but then it becomes distracting and i think i am too dim so i put it down, but this Architecture From The Outside has me wanting to persevere. So I think i'll pick up some Kierkegarrd, Husserl and Heidegger, or more Heidegger. Tractatus is tough but intriguing. I like Barthes, Blanchot, Chomsky is fun, especially the political, and I will even try my de Man book; Allegories of Reading...
I am doing this on my bus to and from work, so it's fun - reading is fundamental!
Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do onne thing well, and not many; and that if he attempt many,; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any?
hmmmm...well I fo'sho ain't no philosopher king or whatever, but...here goes...
my arch-theory foundation was a bit unusual, I think. I came to design school with an Associate's degree, a handful of humanities courses and an intro to philosophy class...so i *thought* I had a clue regarding what Architectural Theory 1 would be like. not even close. we spent most of the semester on texts such as The Epic of Gilgamesh and Plato's Erotic Dialogues, along with other authors from Aristotle to Vico. We read some Thoreau, Descartes et al, but much of our time focused on what our professor considered "original texts." +q was my TA in that class...
starting that semester, i would take whatever I was reading that struck a chord and apply it somehow to my studio project. this resulted in me taking a series of positions - one or so a semester - and making my project respond to my 'manifesto of the month.' Studio professors typically gave 2 shits about my 'theoretical stance' when critiquing a project. perhaps that was justified. point is, I took whatever I was reading and threw it at a studio project. each compound reacted differently than the previous. this was my way of making theory relevant (to myself).
As I am sure we all (or at elast AP and I) agree Gilgamesh, The Erotic Dialogues of Plato, his ideas of [F]orm in the Phaedo, and Thoreau guide most of our architectural decisions. At least I know that at UF we had someone that made all this stuff very relevant for us.
For some background on Derrida I would read Roland Barthes, he basically began the train of thought Derrida as well as a lot of architects from Venturi to Rossi to Eisenman to blobitects have jumped on. Out of these architects I would read Rossi and Venturi closely, the complete lack of 'human' values in Eisenman's work is just too much for me to ignore and recommend, but I am sure you have read all these guys anyway. Adorno I think can be sprinkled here for good measure of critique to the modern project that Eisenman claims didnt happen until he made it happen.
I have said this before in the blog, and at the risk of being labeled the pinko in the 'nect, what I find most interesting is that philosophers from Plato to Derrida have strong ethical agendas for their ideas that often get completely forgotten when translated to architecture. Usually only the simplest formal ideas of semiotics, deconstruction, the situationists, etc are translated into architecture... but the actual ethics and political dimensions of the idea are mostly left behind. My mantra and I am sticking to it.
I started with Emerson and Thereau, hiked my way to Muir and Aldo Leopold, and now am enjoying the tobbogon ride down Stan Allen and Jim Corner with a few sprinkles of thousands of plateaus.
If you want to try Derrida, first read some James Joyce to get used to unintelligable language, I'd suggest finnagan's wake as essential reading before trying to deconstruct any texts (and please wear some gloves).
Reading philosophy, literary/aesthetic theory, is great ... but just bear in mind that (with some notable exceptions), many of these writers that architects love to quote are not writing about architecture at all (A Thousand Plateaus is not about architecture ... full stop). So it seems like there are two concurrent streams of thinking that you can follow. On the one hand, you can look at the historians (Banham, Colqohoun, Frampton, Giedion, Tafuri, et al), and look at the writing of history as a type of philosophical endeavor. As one of my professors told me this semester, this means that you have to peel away these writers' operative strategies to get at the meat of these "histories", but at the same time recognize that these operative strategies do exist and that they do have a purpose.
On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with starting in the present, and working your way back, philosophy wise. The great thing about this type of writing (a type of writing which would fall under the broad rubric of cultural criticism), is that it attempts to build upon, clarify, and outperform its antecedents. Hence Louis Althusser is "more Marx than Marx", Jacques Lacan "more Freud than Freud," Slavoj Zizek "more Lacan than Lacan", and Friedrich Kittler "more McLuhan than McLuhan" ... you get the idea.
Also, it may be interesting to divide your reading list between works that are critical, and those that look to an engagement with contemporary popular culture as their locus of operation. Yes, I'm talking about the whole critical vs. postcritical thing ... but I refuse to go there.
While a liberal reading of philosophy is not a particularly bad idea to offset the biases of recommendations from various schools, I dare to say that skipping certain people in between and reading the later works will not be as edifying as trying to follow their thoughts through the centuries. Conservatively, if you see philosophy as a continuation of questions raised and answers attempted through the ages, it makes no sense at all to read some later works while skipping the foundational ones. If you do so, then Whitehead would say that you are reading the footnotes only.
That said, some mavericks do try to work outside this tradition of great conversation. Wittgenstein was one and perhaps the later Heidegger was another one. I dare to say that to savor Kierkegaard, one must at least begin from Augustine. Then you have people who professes the end of philosophy. I have tried reading Hegel but then got hopelessly lost on my own. But strategically, works that proclaimed the deadends are good places to retrace the steps too.
It is true that many of these philosophers are hardly talking about architecture. But I think thinking outside of architecture is helpful for the mental horizons of the architects, who are the necessary but not sufficient creators of architecture. The world is in reality much bigger than architecture. So why use architecture as a measuring rod?
Speaking of Deleuze-related, I just finished Manuel De Landa's "A thousand years of non-linear history", amazing book, I can not look at the world in the same way, its as if I only saw in black and white before, and now I see in a little better grayscale. I say greyscale and not color because of course, there is always more....
Not really architecture-related or influenced, but I loved Kierkegaard's "Diary of a Seducer" . Similar to architecture, it works on many levels, depending on how you read it, there's the superficial, "its a funny story", the broader view of human nature, and many other interpretations, of course, all are an argument for Kierkegaard's existential christianity. Also, Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" is maybe applicable to architecture, although trying to read that alone would be impossible to understand, I suggest having other people to talk about it with.
"that all the architects that use it are correct."metamechanic
justifying the how and the which is best left to you; innate curiosity, like a gadfly or an earth worm, takes care of its own. otherwise you must only expect literary bulemia (A-Z)
the antiseptic partitioning of the library into subject-matter and the stickers with 'philosophy/history' printed on them so we can feel safe in the comfort of purchasing depth and education ...should be slightly undone.
i think i agree with noctilucent for the first time.
to take it even further, i've found as much material with architectural implications, or at least things that get my architectural mind turning, in murder mysteries and wired magazine as i have in either architectural or philosophical texts.
if you're going to be an architectural historian, a theorist or critic, philosopher, or writer then reading as many arch/phil texts as possible and understanding them as intimately related is probably impt. if you're intention is to practice, i think less so.
i find that this is a constant struggle for me. i'm the type of person who likes to absorb information, to the point that i might never do anything. the temptation to just consume text, image, and other inspiration has to be curbed in order for creative work to happen, imo.
i like ap's m.o. described above: read>test, read>test. the things that work for you will stick, the things that don't will fall away.
also, if you're actively producing work, 'correct' is irrelevant. misreading is a creative act, as equally valuable/viable as a correct comprehension of what you've read.
noct and steven, on very large level i agree with you both, and ap as well, but does not one risk, without some 'basic' foundation, being caught in some inescapable web of text/ideas/concepts/theories, without any recourse or way out?
i am caught in my surgical, pain, and psychological methods of trying to create something and thought that perhaps some authors outside of those areas might shed some light.
for one i love my book by Elaine Scarry, The Body In Pain, for me it is magnificent, and leads to religious discourse, marxist writings and such, so i would say for me that is what i tend to return. that and Richard Selzer...
beta, i guess for me a 'basic' foundation is what sticks to you as YOUR basic foundation, not some origin/foundation of philosophy or architecture.
your 'the body in pain' reminds me that for a while i was enamored of a book called 'thinking through the body'. i haven't thought about the book in a long time, but i realize that some of its themes are still very much part of how i think.
I have nothing of value to add to this discussion, especially on two hours sleep. Just two comments: Steven's comment about learning an architectural "philosophy" via other readings rings so true to me. My attitude toward architecture is so tied up in my basic existence that the things I learned from fiction like Pynchon and Tom Robbins, and non-fiction like my sister's medical textbooks, and the writing of artists like Agnes Martin and other architects are easier to point to as my "philosophy" than anything I tried to suffer through learning from Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty or John Dewey.
if you gotta read old books, it's best to read the really old ones with gloves on. gotta thank Kazys for sharing his fetish of parchment and guttenberg in the rare books room at Penn - but I'd rather be in the desert with a big bottle of water.
ps- hide the pens, pencils only are allowed around those treasured tomes.
my warning: don't approach your endeavor from an architect's POV (point of view), or look for some 'philosophy of architecture'. you will drive youreself crazy. philosophy is a study of such universalities as being, meaning, time, life, death...approach it from a human POV first, then later look at architecture as a subset of philosophy.
there are no wholesome architecture-centric philosophies because architecture is defined by the interaction of simplier and more universal concepts - humanity, matter, perception, time, etc.
My strategy for reading about philosophy and theory as it applies to architecture is one of ambivalence, discernment and coincidence.
That is to say, I read around the subject, I specifically dont read some authors or books [never read Derrida, Foucault, Colomina etc]. I find it helpful not to know some things.
I dont moralise my decisions in what to read. I decide it its useful in terms of its application. I guess then that I concsiously operate from a narrow range of intellectual tools.
I like The First House by Robin Dripps and some writings by Mircea Eliade - particularly The Sacred and the Profane, but I have an aversion to the overly poetic. I have some Heidegger. I find alot of interesting applications in Nietzsche's Aesthetics - see Decosterd & Rahm's Physiological Architecture.
I like some of the early work of Eisenman, and commentaries on his work by Zaera Polo. I am a machinist after all. Evolutionary biology is interesting, as is etymology and cosmology.
My favourite definition of architecture is by Loos: "When we find a mound in the woods, six feet long and three feet wide, raised to a pyramidal form by means of a spade, we become serious and something in us says: someone was buried here. That is architecture."
However, nothing you read, see or hear will give you what you need.
architecture of pleasure, BE. reading it now, for the second time because i realized at the last chapter that i had been scanning the first time.
a lot of it is stuff learned in intro to architecture so it's easy to take for granted but i've realized that it's a good book and the arch 101 recap is an impt part of his argument. this book would be great to give to a client if you want them to be serious about architecture. also good for family who wonder what the hell you're on about all the time. really it's an argument for what many of us, as architects, believe about the imptce of architecture. the things that people not trained in arch never seem to fully comprehend.
i am having the same problem., so i decided that i will try to get in philosophy school parallel with architecture studies.. there is no telling what will happen from this:)
nichomachean above said it best. his post is spot on.
arch theory does not reduce to philosophy. if you want any philosopher who says anything with direct correspondence to architecture you shall not find one worth being called a philosopher.
i would question the desire to link the two in any direct way. if i had to point to a good 'philosophy' book that had even an oblique utitlity for architects it would be bachelard's 'poetics of space.
as wonderful as that book is, that was bachelard's pastoral. his real philosophical work was in philosophy of science.
Philosophmore Bookages
I am trying to get a grip, a hold of some of the things I have been reading, but man if it don't seem like an race against time to try and comprehend where I should begin when it comes to philosophy and architecture. When you try Derrida I think shouldn't I start earlier? Deleuze the same thing. What is the beginning, what is the nearest point one should begin to try and get a leg up on what it is I have been reading? I thought perhaps by starting at a bibliography and working back from there? Any thoughts? Diabase? AP? Smoke? +q?
Signe me,
Trying To Get Educated
i'm no philosopher-architect, but i think you could start almost anywhere. derrida will make you curious about certain things which came before; deleuze might lead you a different direction.
i'd say sample at random. i started with kierkegaard's 'the concept of dread' in high school, understood very little of it but kept going.
despite reading many of the hot titles over the last decade or so - and being excited about the possibilities that they present, on occasion - i still fall back on heidegger as the most useful in finding and understanding what i hope to achieve in a built architecture.
You can never really get to the start. All the philosophers rely on their predecessors. Steven's right - you could start anywhere and work backwards. However, some philosophers make it easier than others. At first, you understand virtually nothing, then after a while you start to make connections. Read philosophers who speak to the philosophical problems you relate to. Don't bother reading anyone because they're supposed to be important.
Get a Philosophical encyclopedia (The Oxford Companion to Philosophy is great). That will help you get sound-bite level understandings of people. Alternatively the Stanford Encyclopedia or the IEP are helpful.
Some random suggestions you might like or hate:
Heidegger's 'Building Dwelling Thinking'
Derrida's 'Structure Sign and Play' and 'That Dangerous Supplement'
Kierkegaard's 'Fear and Trembling'
Foucault's 'Archaeology of Knowledge'
good thoughts. what i have found is that i enjoy the interview as method, it seems that when a person is interviewed you can get a better appreciation/understanding of their viewpoint, than if you try to digest their writing.
i've read a little of a lot, but then it becomes distracting and i think i am too dim so i put it down, but this Architecture From The Outside has me wanting to persevere. So I think i'll pick up some Kierkegarrd, Husserl and Heidegger, or more Heidegger. Tractatus is tough but intriguing. I like Barthes, Blanchot, Chomsky is fun, especially the political, and I will even try my de Man book; Allegories of Reading...
I am doing this on my bus to and from work, so it's fun - reading is fundamental!
Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do onne thing well, and not many; and that if he attempt many,; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any?
hmmmm...well I fo'sho ain't no philosopher king or whatever, but...here goes...
my arch-theory foundation was a bit unusual, I think. I came to design school with an Associate's degree, a handful of humanities courses and an intro to philosophy class...so i *thought* I had a clue regarding what Architectural Theory 1 would be like. not even close. we spent most of the semester on texts such as The Epic of Gilgamesh and Plato's Erotic Dialogues, along with other authors from Aristotle to Vico. We read some Thoreau, Descartes et al, but much of our time focused on what our professor considered "original texts." +q was my TA in that class...
starting that semester, i would take whatever I was reading that struck a chord and apply it somehow to my studio project. this resulted in me taking a series of positions - one or so a semester - and making my project respond to my 'manifesto of the month.' Studio professors typically gave 2 shits about my 'theoretical stance' when critiquing a project. perhaps that was justified. point is, I took whatever I was reading and threw it at a studio project. each compound reacted differently than the previous. this was my way of making theory relevant (to myself).
hope that helps.
so, I guess we started at the beginning? +q?
Hegel - Philosophy of History
my theory prof is still convinced its impossible to think outside of him.
yes you can think outside of hegel. his name is schopenhauer.
As I am sure we all (or at elast AP and I) agree Gilgamesh, The Erotic Dialogues of Plato, his ideas of [F]orm in the Phaedo, and Thoreau guide most of our architectural decisions. At least I know that at UF we had someone that made all this stuff very relevant for us.
For some background on Derrida I would read Roland Barthes, he basically began the train of thought Derrida as well as a lot of architects from Venturi to Rossi to Eisenman to blobitects have jumped on. Out of these architects I would read Rossi and Venturi closely, the complete lack of 'human' values in Eisenman's work is just too much for me to ignore and recommend, but I am sure you have read all these guys anyway. Adorno I think can be sprinkled here for good measure of critique to the modern project that Eisenman claims didnt happen until he made it happen.
I have said this before in the blog, and at the risk of being labeled the pinko in the 'nect, what I find most interesting is that philosophers from Plato to Derrida have strong ethical agendas for their ideas that often get completely forgotten when translated to architecture. Usually only the simplest formal ideas of semiotics, deconstruction, the situationists, etc are translated into architecture... but the actual ethics and political dimensions of the idea are mostly left behind. My mantra and I am sticking to it.
Beta-
I started with Emerson and Thereau, hiked my way to Muir and Aldo Leopold, and now am enjoying the tobbogon ride down Stan Allen and Jim Corner with a few sprinkles of thousands of plateaus.
If you want to try Derrida, first read some James Joyce to get used to unintelligable language, I'd suggest finnagan's wake as essential reading before trying to deconstruct any texts (and please wear some gloves).
Hi
Reading philosophy, literary/aesthetic theory, is great ... but just bear in mind that (with some notable exceptions), many of these writers that architects love to quote are not writing about architecture at all (A Thousand Plateaus is not about architecture ... full stop). So it seems like there are two concurrent streams of thinking that you can follow. On the one hand, you can look at the historians (Banham, Colqohoun, Frampton, Giedion, Tafuri, et al), and look at the writing of history as a type of philosophical endeavor. As one of my professors told me this semester, this means that you have to peel away these writers' operative strategies to get at the meat of these "histories", but at the same time recognize that these operative strategies do exist and that they do have a purpose.
On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with starting in the present, and working your way back, philosophy wise. The great thing about this type of writing (a type of writing which would fall under the broad rubric of cultural criticism), is that it attempts to build upon, clarify, and outperform its antecedents. Hence Louis Althusser is "more Marx than Marx", Jacques Lacan "more Freud than Freud," Slavoj Zizek "more Lacan than Lacan", and Friedrich Kittler "more McLuhan than McLuhan" ... you get the idea.
Also, it may be interesting to divide your reading list between works that are critical, and those that look to an engagement with contemporary popular culture as their locus of operation. Yes, I'm talking about the whole critical vs. postcritical thing ... but I refuse to go there.
While a liberal reading of philosophy is not a particularly bad idea to offset the biases of recommendations from various schools, I dare to say that skipping certain people in between and reading the later works will not be as edifying as trying to follow their thoughts through the centuries. Conservatively, if you see philosophy as a continuation of questions raised and answers attempted through the ages, it makes no sense at all to read some later works while skipping the foundational ones. If you do so, then Whitehead would say that you are reading the footnotes only.
That said, some mavericks do try to work outside this tradition of great conversation. Wittgenstein was one and perhaps the later Heidegger was another one. I dare to say that to savor Kierkegaard, one must at least begin from Augustine. Then you have people who professes the end of philosophy. I have tried reading Hegel but then got hopelessly lost on my own. But strategically, works that proclaimed the deadends are good places to retrace the steps too.
It is true that many of these philosophers are hardly talking about architecture. But I think thinking outside of architecture is helpful for the mental horizons of the architects, who are the necessary but not sufficient creators of architecture. The world is in reality much bigger than architecture. So why use architecture as a measuring rod?
study aesthetics its cool and sexy...
cosmology vs. cosmetology...
Speaking of Deleuze-related, I just finished Manuel De Landa's "A thousand years of non-linear history", amazing book, I can not look at the world in the same way, its as if I only saw in black and white before, and now I see in a little better grayscale. I say greyscale and not color because of course, there is always more....
Not really architecture-related or influenced, but I loved Kierkegaard's "Diary of a Seducer" . Similar to architecture, it works on many levels, depending on how you read it, there's the superficial, "its a funny story", the broader view of human nature, and many other interpretations, of course, all are an argument for Kierkegaard's existential christianity. Also, Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" is maybe applicable to architecture, although trying to read that alone would be impossible to understand, I suggest having other people to talk about it with.
what is it to 'get educated'?
"that all the architects that use it are correct."metamechanic
justifying the how and the which is best left to you; innate curiosity, like a gadfly or an earth worm, takes care of its own. otherwise you must only expect literary bulemia (A-Z)
the antiseptic partitioning of the library into subject-matter and the stickers with 'philosophy/history' printed on them so we can feel safe in the comfort of purchasing depth and education ...should be slightly undone.
i think i agree with noctilucent for the first time.
to take it even further, i've found as much material with architectural implications, or at least things that get my architectural mind turning, in murder mysteries and wired magazine as i have in either architectural or philosophical texts.
if you're going to be an architectural historian, a theorist or critic, philosopher, or writer then reading as many arch/phil texts as possible and understanding them as intimately related is probably impt. if you're intention is to practice, i think less so.
i find that this is a constant struggle for me. i'm the type of person who likes to absorb information, to the point that i might never do anything. the temptation to just consume text, image, and other inspiration has to be curbed in order for creative work to happen, imo.
i like ap's m.o. described above: read>test, read>test. the things that work for you will stick, the things that don't will fall away.
also, if you're actively producing work, 'correct' is irrelevant. misreading is a creative act, as equally valuable/viable as a correct comprehension of what you've read.
noct and steven, on very large level i agree with you both, and ap as well, but does not one risk, without some 'basic' foundation, being caught in some inescapable web of text/ideas/concepts/theories, without any recourse or way out?
i am caught in my surgical, pain, and psychological methods of trying to create something and thought that perhaps some authors outside of those areas might shed some light.
for one i love my book by Elaine Scarry, The Body In Pain, for me it is magnificent, and leads to religious discourse, marxist writings and such, so i would say for me that is what i tend to return. that and Richard Selzer...
to really have a voice in the american workplace, you should really be up on fantasy football.
beta, i guess for me a 'basic' foundation is what sticks to you as YOUR basic foundation, not some origin/foundation of philosophy or architecture.
your 'the body in pain' reminds me that for a while i was enamored of a book called 'thinking through the body'. i haven't thought about the book in a long time, but i realize that some of its themes are still very much part of how i think.
I have nothing of value to add to this discussion, especially on two hours sleep. Just two comments: Steven's comment about learning an architectural "philosophy" via other readings rings so true to me. My attitude toward architecture is so tied up in my basic existence that the things I learned from fiction like Pynchon and Tom Robbins, and non-fiction like my sister's medical textbooks, and the writing of artists like Agnes Martin and other architects are easier to point to as my "philosophy" than anything I tried to suffer through learning from Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty or John Dewey.
Also, just this: how can any discussion of philosophy not include reference to Monty Python's Philosopher Song?
if you gotta read old books, it's best to read the really old ones with gloves on. gotta thank Kazys for sharing his fetish of parchment and guttenberg in the rare books room at Penn - but I'd rather be in the desert with a big bottle of water.
ps- hide the pens, pencils only are allowed around those treasured tomes.
i like these books:
Rethinking Architecture : A Reader in Cultural Theory
Deleuze Connections
interesting conversation on Market Economics, ethics... LIVE NOW, it will be available for free afterwards too.
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2006/11/20061130_b_main.asp
q
my warning: don't approach your endeavor from an architect's POV (point of view), or look for some 'philosophy of architecture'. you will drive youreself crazy. philosophy is a study of such universalities as being, meaning, time, life, death...approach it from a human POV first, then later look at architecture as a subset of philosophy.
there are no wholesome architecture-centric philosophies because architecture is defined by the interaction of simplier and more universal concepts - humanity, matter, perception, time, etc.
My strategy for reading about philosophy and theory as it applies to architecture is one of ambivalence, discernment and coincidence.
That is to say, I read around the subject, I specifically dont read some authors or books [never read Derrida, Foucault, Colomina etc]. I find it helpful not to know some things.
I dont moralise my decisions in what to read. I decide it its useful in terms of its application. I guess then that I concsiously operate from a narrow range of intellectual tools.
I like The First House by Robin Dripps and some writings by Mircea Eliade - particularly The Sacred and the Profane, but I have an aversion to the overly poetic. I have some Heidegger. I find alot of interesting applications in Nietzsche's Aesthetics - see Decosterd & Rahm's Physiological Architecture.
I like some of the early work of Eisenman, and commentaries on his work by Zaera Polo. I am a machinist after all. Evolutionary biology is interesting, as is etymology and cosmology.
My favourite definition of architecture is by Loos: "When we find a mound in the woods, six feet long and three feet wide, raised to a pyramidal form by means of a spade, we become serious and something in us says: someone was buried here. That is architecture."
However, nothing you read, see or hear will give you what you need.
Anyone read The Architecture of Happiness yet by de Botton?
architecture of pleasure, BE. reading it now, for the second time because i realized at the last chapter that i had been scanning the first time.
a lot of it is stuff learned in intro to architecture so it's easy to take for granted but i've realized that it's a good book and the arch 101 recap is an impt part of his argument. this book would be great to give to a client if you want them to be serious about architecture. also good for family who wonder what the hell you're on about all the time. really it's an argument for what many of us, as architects, believe about the imptce of architecture. the things that people not trained in arch never seem to fully comprehend.
also beautifully written.
if it didn't think it was self-centered of me, i'd give it to all of my family for christmas.
I just checked it out: will be my christmas reading if (fingers crossed), others do not recall the book!
Totally agree Steven. It is an excellent book for the architecturally jaded or those too busy or tired to remember why architecture is so important.
i am having the same problem., so i decided that i will try to get in philosophy school parallel with architecture studies.. there is no telling what will happen from this:)
that's double bad martin...you're gonna go broke...try architecture and dentistry instead...crossover the tools...
computer aided root canal...
That's not true: at least as a philosophy phd, you get to be a conversationally interesting cabdriver in NYC.
i've thought about becoming a surgical tech for an orthopedic department...
nichomachean above said it best. his post is spot on.
arch theory does not reduce to philosophy. if you want any philosopher who says anything with direct correspondence to architecture you shall not find one worth being called a philosopher.
i would question the desire to link the two in any direct way. if i had to point to a good 'philosophy' book that had even an oblique utitlity for architects it would be bachelard's 'poetics of space.
as wonderful as that book is, that was bachelard's pastoral. his real philosophical work was in philosophy of science.
Try this out, too: amaznode, a very cool visualization of anything on amazon...
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